New cooperative policy centralises power and snatches rights of State governments, says Samyukt Kisan Morcha

The Hindu

a day ago

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), a platform of several farmers' organisations, has alleged on Sunday (July 27, 2025) that the National Cooperation Policy (NCP), unveiled by Union Minister for Home and Cooperation Amit Shah on Friday, violates the Constitution of India, centralises power and snatches rights of State governments.
In a statement issued here on Sunday, the SKM said the policy lacks the perspective to protect rights of farmers and workers on livelihood, minimum support price, minimum wage and sharing of surplus.
The SKM alleged that the new policy is aimed at seizing people's resources, and making cooperatives serve corporate interests and it urged the political parties and State governments to fight the attack on cooperative federalism to protect the Indian Union. 'As per the Constitution of India. Cooperative Societies come under entry 32 of the State list [list II] of the seventh schedule. The Supreme Court ruling on 97th Amendment IXB of the Constitution has categorically said 97th amendment is unconstitutional in so far as it pertains to cooperative societies operating within a single State. The court found that that part of the amendment required ratification by at least half of the State legislatures as per article 368(2) of the Constitution which was not done,' the SKM said.
Attack on rights
Maintaining that none of the mainstream media has pointed out such violation of the Constitution of India by the Narendra Modi Government and the Union Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah, the SKM alleged that the media justified the planned, dangerous attack on the rights and livelihood of the people as assured by the Constitution.
'The Union Cooperative Ministry is applicable only to the Union Territories and the Multi-State Cooperative Societies. In the true spirit, the Multi-State Cooperative Societies also violate the Constitutional provisions regarding cooperative societies. Such efforts are aimed at seizure of people's resources by the ruling class parties, especially the BJP-RSS. The trend of centralisation of power needs to be vehemently resisted by the people especially peasantry, working class and all other sections in trade, services and manufacturing facing the brunt of corporate domination and exploitation,' the SKM said.
The SKM said there is no provision in the new policy to ensure modernisation of agriculture and develop agro based industries and cooperative marketing networks. 'The policy does not contain the concept of producer and consumer cooperatives, collective and cooperative farming to reap the advantage of economies of scale such as reduction in cost of production and leverage of enhancing production and productivity with the support of science and advanced technology thus ensuring generation of employment and remunerative income to overcome the agrarian crisis. Thus the NCP 2025 fails to come up with meaningful proposals for modernisation of agriculture, industry and services,' the SKM said.
'Corporate sector will dictate prices'
The SKM said once the domination of agribusiness over agriculture and rural resources is completed, the corporate sector will dictate the market and prices and let loose exploitation on the entire working people across the country.
'If the BJP and RSS leadership is sincere for development of the farmers, workers and marginalised sections, they should insist the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister to rather empower the State governments based on the perspective of cooperative federalism and provide 50% of the resources of the Union Government to support State governments and modernise cooperative societies across India. The corporate forces should not be allowed to enter agriculture and agro based industries and markets and Union and the State governments have to regulate the private sector to ensure minimum wage to workers and minimum support price to farmers,' the SKM statement added.
The NCP 2025 if implemented will infringe on the rights of the State governments and facilitate corporate takeover of agriculture, horticulture, dairy and fisheries sectors. The SKM demands all the political parties and State governments to oppose the NCP 2025 and fight the attack on cooperative federalism in order to protect the Indian Union and the interests of the entire working people, the statement added.